Cycling Betting

Cycling is a fantastic spectator sport and has gotten better and better to watch on TV since the advent of radio cameras in the 80s which allow motorbikes to ride alongside the racers and get up close and personal as they fight their way through the peloton.

When you mention cycling to some people in this day and age you’ll be met with a cynical response about drugs and how the cyclist with the best pharmacist will usually win, but nonetheless cycling is still exciting to watch, and to bet on, despite lingering questions over the integrity of the competitors.

You’ll find that many of the major betting sites will take bets on cycling these days and it’s actually one of the sports where someone who follows the sport all year round and knows the races and riders well can stand to make a tidy profit.

Our resident cycling betting expert has checked out the cycling action at a ton of betting sites, and has come up with the below as his recommendation for you to try out:

What Races Can I Bet On?

When it comes to betting, it’s mostly European cycling that you’ll find on most sites, but what is covered is covered very well. Typically you’ll be able to bet on the Grand Tours of course i.e. the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and the Vuelta a España.

You’ll also be able to bet on UCI World Tour events which include longer races like the Tour Down Under and Paris-Nice, and one day Classics like the Paris-Roubaix, Milan – San Remo, Tour of Flanders , Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Amstel Gold Race, Clásica de San Sebastián and the Giro di Lombardia. Of course betting on the Tour de France is by far the most popular, but cycling betting enthusiasts will have no shortage of events to bet on.

We can’t forget the Olympic games of course, where you can bet on the road race and lots of the track events. When it comes to track cycling, it’s much less popular among bettors. Outside the Olympics you’re restricted to the annual World Championships and the World Cup Classics which serve as qualification events for the World Championships but in many cases the betting markets will be thin on the ground.

Cycling Betting Markets

The sports books spread a fairly wide range of markets on the events that they do cover meaning that the cycling fan can bet on much more than just the ‘who will win?’ market that attracts casual punters. For your typical multi-day event you can bet on the stage winner, the yellow jersey holder at the end of the day, whether a rider will get a podium finish, the team classifications, points classifications, and the number of stages a rider will win.

Aside from that you can bet on who will be ‘King of the Mountains’ and who will win the Young Rider classification. One interesting aspect to cycling betting is the ‘head to head’ where the bookmaker takes 2 riders and you have to choose which will do better. Making 4 of 5 of these bets on a race gives you a continued interest throughout, without your choice having to necessarily win.

Cycling Betting Tips

The only general tip we can give you for betting on cycling is to do your research. If you follow the sport regularly then you’ll know what form the riders are in, and you’ll know the demands that different races and stages place on riders and which ones will be better suited to them. Thankfully in the digital age there’s a wealth of information at your finger tips. The International Cycling Union maintains a complete database of results from all race which you can find here. This should help you tremendously when you go to try and pick a winner.

The other obvious tip is to pick the site with the best odds. If you don’t shop around you’ll could well find yourself getting ripped off. If you refer to the table at the top of the article you’ll find the best sites for cycling odds out of about 25 which we have researched. The other reason we’ve chosen these sites is that they make mistakes. As well as having generous odds, they’ll often have the races priced up completely wrong which leads to great opportunities to make some good value bets.